Who is my granddaddy?

   Chapter 21

 A TRIP TO MONTANA IN A MODEL T FORD

Can you imagine this conversation, approximately 92 years ago, at the home of Bill and Tommie Anderson;

 Bill,  I think I will go to Montana to see my sisters Mae and Bell.

 Tommie,  how do you plan to get from Strong City to Montana?

 Bill,  I will take our youngest, Leona and Georgia Faye, Leona is 14 now and she can drive our Model T Ford. 

Tommie,  how long will you be gone?

 Bill, about a month or two.

 Tommie, I  think I will stay home and take care of our borders.

 Well it happened!  I would assume in 1924 there were few paved roads between Oklahoma and Montana.  Only a few hotels and no fast food restaurants.  Leona said they camped out at night. For food, Dad would sit in the front passenger seat and whenever he saw a rabbit, squirrel, or quail  he would take out his Colt 38 pistol and shoot our next meal.  I assume Grandmother Tommie packed plenty of biscuits to send along.

  Bill’s son, Orren Anderson, taking the ladies for a ride in the family Model T Ford

 When they arrived at a Indian reservation, near La Junta, Colorado, they parked near a bon fire.  Leona said “Dad followed two men with big black hats, and told Georgia Faye and I to stay in the car.”  They watched Dad visit with the Indians who led him to a teepee.   He was gone for awhile and when he came back to the car, Leona ask him who he was visiting, well if you want to see come with me (Georgia Faye was asleep in the car and did not go with them).  They went to a teepee  where there was “ a very old grey haired lady with nice cloths” sitting on the ground.  She did not speak English, however this was not a problem as Dad spoke fluent Cherokee. When they left Leona ask her Dad, who was that lady, he simply said “she was a relative”.  A lot of research has gone on since then and no one has been able to determine who this relative was?

 Grandfather made application for membership to the Eastern Cherokee Nation, Miller Roll #34466, on August 16, 1907.  His Miller application, along with several sworn statements from Cherokees who were acquainted with granddad’s ancestry, stated that he had Cherokee blood from his ggg grandmother, Bettie Harlan, who had lived in the old Cherokee Nation, East.  Unfortunately, like Tommie’s ancestors, his ggg grandmother Bettie did not sign the Indian “Rolls”, which was a requirement for membership.  Back in 1907, Bill did not have the computers and sources such as Ancestry.com that we have for tracing our blood relatives today. It would have been impossible for Bill  to provide the information they required on Bettie Harlan, who was born in 1760.  Many Eastern Native American Indians did not want to sign the rolls, they simply wanted to stay in their native Carolina country.

 My memories of our grandparents goes back to the 1940’s, when I was a young teenager.  I remember showing Granddad Bill my Hereford heifer calf that I had earned by hoeing cotton  for Aunt Leona and Uncle Jess Sullins.  Granddad said “Jim Lee we need to ear mark this heifer”,  then he took out his knife and chopped off half of that young calf’s ear.  I had tears in my eyes for my poor calf.

 I do not believe Granddad ever really learned how to drive, but after his driver, Aunt Leona married, he was on his own.  When I was 12 years old he decided to take my cousin Dwayne and I for a ride.  As we rounded a country dirt road corner, he got to close to the bar ditch and we rolled over.  Dwayne and I layed upside down as Granddad calmly said “don’t worry boys everything is ok”.  My reply was “Granddad we are upside down”!  We walked back to the farm where he got a team of horse to help upright his Model A Ford.

    It is interesting that Strong City had a Ford dealership in the early days.

 When visiting  grandmother Tommie Lee, I remember her cooking biscuits and hugging us at the same time.  She was a beautiful woman who thought only of others.  She had a wonderful Christian influence on granddad, her children and grandchildren.  She took granddad to a country revival when he was 37 and he was baptized.  He was quiet and a gentle man, the stories he told his daughters were never in a bragging manner.  He simply lived in the early days where the six shooter ruled.  His horsemanship was well known around western Oklahoma.  At the age of 70, he won the Cheyenne, Oklahoma Rodeo calf roping contest.

Our grandparents, Bill and Tommie Anderson, July 1937.

We are blessed to have Bill and Tommie’s adventurous and compassionate genes!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 20

FROM REDMOON TO STRONG CITY

After the land opening, James Hammon was sent to the Red Moon Agency, near the future site of Hammon, Oklahoma, to build a reservation school and to teach the Cheyenne and Arapaho’s how to farm.

  A second Red Moon School was established near Rush Creek in the Red Moon community.  This would be the school Bill Anderson’s children attended.

The Andersons drove a buggy to school with children Orren, Lillie, Virgil and Jack. The Cheyenne Sunbeam paper reported “The team which the Anderson family drives to school ran away Thursday evening whilst going home. The buggy tongue came out letting the team loose and probably saving the occupants of the buggy from serious injury. The horses ran into a wire fence and were captured”. (We assume they were referring to Bill’s family).

In 1916, the Anderson family moved to Strong City, Oklahoma. A year later the Red Moon school closed. Strong City showed enormous growth as the railroad greatly expanded their trade area. A million dollars worth of broom corn was shipped out in 1913. Strong City became the “Broom Corn Capital of the World”. The local hog market also flourished.

Strong City had grown in population to around 600. It became the largest town in Roger Mills County and one of the largest in Western Oklahoma. In 1915 Cheyenne, Oklahoma was the county seat for Roger Mills County. Since Strong City had a railroad and Cheyenne had none, a group of Strong City business men thought the county seat should be moved to Strong City, “so the fight was on”. The Cheyenne business men conceived the ideas of building a short line of railroad from Cheyenne to Strong City, about 7 miles. Their rolling stock consisted of one obsolete freight engine, one old freight car and one caboose. The train ran forward to Strong City and reversed to Cheyenne. Primitive as it was, it saved the day and the county seat remained in Cheyenne.

1917-18 were “tough times” for the Anderson family. Tommie cooked and took in borders, and to help ends meet Bill took on the job of Manager of the Herring and Young Grocery Store. The pay for being the Deputy Sheriff was probably around $30.00 a month and with seven children money was scarce.

Crew at the Herring & Young store in Strong City, Oklahoma 

Their son Virgil joined the army as a Private in the 23^rd Infantry, U.S. Army. Very shortly after enlisting he caught the flu and then pneumonia. He died on May 29, 1917.

  

During the flu epedimic of 1918, 2,500 Oklahomans died. Tommie Lee Anderson had a reputation as a nurse and was often available to help neighbors when the doctor could not travel to Strong City from Cheyenne. The Cheyenne Star published this story about Tommie, “An able nurse, Mrs. Bill Anderson, as was the custom among the friends of the area, had been at the Caffeys to help out in any way she could (Paulyne Caffey died of flu on Christmas morning) the snow had reached almost blizzard proportions and it was impossible to travel the roads by car or wagon, so no one could take Mrs. Anderson home. Tommie Anderson walked the mile or so to her home in Strong City. A pretty little girl, Georgia Faye Anderson, watched out the window Christmas morning as her mother neared home – fighting her way through the heavy snowdrifts”.

                                                 Tommie Lee Anderson